Monday, December 7, 2009

Do you have trouble peeling your boiled eggs? I did too, until I learned a wonderful, new trick and I have barely had any trouble with peeling eggs since!!

I'm going to share with you my egg boiling procedure start to finish:

* Choose your oldest eggs (I usually have 2 cartons of eggs in my fridge, and always leave the older eggs in the bottom carton, using the eggs in the carton on top for baking, breakfast, etc.). Older eggs crack and the shell separates from the egg more easily.
* Place desired amount of eggs in a pot with cold water to about 2" above the eggs.
* Turn on high and bring to a boil. Once boiling, set your timer for 13 minutes and continue to boil.
* While eggs are boiling, make an ice water bath (large bowl, ½ ice and ½ water).
* Once your timer beeps, turn the eggs off and immediately dip them out of boiling water and place in ice water bath.
* Leave in ice water bath until completely chilled through (this is usually when I move on to another project and come back in an hour or two when I remember that I have eggs chillin'!).
* Remove eggs from ice water onto a towel.
* If you are not using the eggs immediately, allow to dry, slip them into a ziploc and place in fridge.
* If you are using the eggs immediately:
:: Crack egg on counter (similar to how you'd crack a raw egg) until a dime size area is cracked.
:: Roll your egg on the counter while applying gentle pressure to crack the egg all the way around. (It's best if you use your palm, but I wanted you to actually see the egg!). The idea is to gently 'smush' the peel and release the membrane from the white while rolling. If you don't apply enough pressure the membrane won't loosen, however, if you apply too much pressure it will actually break the white and then you'll have a heck-of-a-time getting the peel off... ask me how I know!

:: The cracked egg should look something like this (they don't always work this well, but are still definitely peel-able):

:: And if you're really fortunate, this will happen:

:: Now, you're ready to peel the rest and prepare that dish!

I boiled 12 eggs and only 2 of them had any white damage after I peeled them. I was making deviled eggs and one of them was definitely not usable (it was absolutely awful to peel) and the other was doable, but the boys came in from playing outside just as I was finishing peeling the eggs, so they ate the damaged ones and I made the rest into deviled eggs!